1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an internal combustion engine mounted in a small planing boat that planes across the water.
2. Description of Background Art
In a small planing boat, an internal combustion engine for driving a jet propulsion pump is mounted inside a boat body surrounded by the hull and the deck, and an occupant such as an operator rides on the deck. Accordingly, the space inside the boat body, which is formed by the hull and the deck and in which the internal combustion engine is accommodated in a substantially hermetically enclosed manner, is narrow.
The internal combustion engine is thus required to be compact. Further, as the lubricating system for the internal combustion engine, there has been adopted a dry sump in which no such oil reservoir for storing a large amount of oil as will cause an increase in overall height is provided in a lower portion of the engine. See, for example, JP-A No. 2003-35201.
Although the oil pan disclosed in JP-A No. 2003-35201 is not for storing a large amount of oil but serves only as a receiving pan at best, some amount of oil can be stored in the oil pan, and the stored oil is sucked up by an oil pump to be introduced into an oil tank.
Inside the oil pan, an oil strainer is provided under tension in a substantially horizontal position. The stored oil is sucked up through this oil strainer and foreign matter is removed.
Since the oil strainer is provided under tension in a substantially horizontal position inside the oil pan, the oil pan is required to have a certain lateral width. Thus, it is not easy to make the oil pan conform to the configuration of the center bottom portion of the small planing boat slanting laterally upwardly.
Further, a space having a certain vertical width is also required above and below the oil strainer placed in a horizontal position. Thus, it is not necessarily easy to reduce the vertical width of the oil pan.